I know who I am

I’m Stephen. That’s what it says on my birth certificate. That’s what it says on my passport. Yet for 40-odd years I went by the shortened form, “Steve”. My friends called me Steve, my work-mates called me Steve, even my mother called me Steve. It’s how I introduced myself: “Hi!, I’m Steve”. But one day in my 40’s I woke up and had an epiphany. I realized that names are very strong tokens for who we are at our core, our identities, our sense of self. Yet we do not get to decide our names (our original ones anyway). They are decided for us by our parents. So as an act of claiming my identity, I decided to make a mid-life change: from now on, I was going to be Stephen rather than Steve. This would be for everyone bar my wife, she was the one person I would give permission to still call me Steve. I would turn Steve from the face I presented to the world into a very private and personal artifact. It felt as though in this simple act I had conjured up some inner power. I felt I was taking control.

I thought it would be an interesting social experiment too - would people respect my wishes or continued to use the old, familiar name? It surprised me that everyone did respect that. Everyone, except for one person - me. It was not deliberate, but every now and then I would introduce myself as Steve and have to walk it back and explain that no I was not Steve, I was now Stephen. I admit it wasn’t a very bold move: I could have changed my name to anything I wanted. But from Steve to Stephen was a large enough step for my mid-life crisis.

Now I tell people that I go by Stephen, and I say I don’t mind if they what they call me - I invite them to use whatever is easier for them to remember. But they always remember and always call me Stephen.

Recently though, I have been called Steve by two people independently. One was a colleague that I had known since the old Steve days, one a new acquaintance. Maybe I never actually told my old colleague. But I didn’t mind at all, in fact I rather liked it. It confirmed our friendship and that we go back a long way. The other was a new acquaintance. Despite what I had been telling everyone for years (that I didn’t mind what they called me), I found out that I did mind. Every time I heard Steve, it was like a small barb. Not large enough for me to correct them. Just a little finger poke in the chest. Don’t get me wrong: I think that’s my problem not the other persons and it is a reasonable assumption that Stephen’s are automatically Steve’s. It may even have been meant as a compliment, that we were using the short, familiar form was a signal that she wanted to be friendly and put me at ease. But I was surprised that it bothered me. I don’t know if this had thrown me off, but shortly after that, I did something I had not done for years and introduced myself to a new set of people as Steve. For the first time, I didn’t even correct myself.

So perhaps I don’t really know who I am after all.